Influence of British Settlersin America

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In the early seventeenth century, with the permission of James I, three ships (The Susan Constant, The Discovery, and The God Speed) sailed from England under the captainship of Christopher Newport. The three ships finally landed at the east coast of North America in the year of 1607. The passengers were some British men and boys, approximately a hundred of them were on board. They would then become the first British settlers that set their feet in Chesapeake (the present-day Virginia) and founded Jamestown, named after their king. But apparently, the settlers had not only found a new land, but they had also encountered other groups of civilized people other than the Europeans. They were joined together under the Powhatan Confederacy, a confederacy which consisted of several local tribes, later on called as the American Indians (Morgan, 1999:48). They mostly occupied the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, under the powerful chief, Powhatan. It was an encounter of two different worlds that would take part in one of many other encounters between British settlers and people of the local tribes. They are also known as the indigenous people. Indigenous peoples are groups of people, that according to the United Nations (2004) could be defined as “…those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them.” This essay will show that the British settlement had influenced some aspects of life of the indigenous peoples in America. This essay will also discuss about the first major impacts that the British settlers brought with them during their early se... ... middle of paper ... ...3) 'The Great Smallpox Epidemic'. History Today [online]. 53 (8). Available from: http://www.historytoday.com/elizabeth-fenn/great-smallpox-epidemic [Accessed on 4 January, 2014] Gallay, A. (2002) The Indian Slave Trade: the Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717. New York: Yale University Press. Goucher C., LeGuin C. & Walton L. (1998) 'Commerce and Change: The Creation of a Global Economy and the Expansion of Europe'. In: In the Balance: Themes in Global History. Boston: McGraw-Hill. pp. 491–508. Morgan, P. D. (1999) 'Encounters between British and "Indigenous" Peoples, c. 1500-c. 1800'. In: Daunton M. & Halpern R. (ed.) Empire and Others: British Encounters with Indigenous Peoples, 1600-1850. London: UCL Press. pp. 42-78. United Nations (2004) Workshop on Data Collection and Disaggregation for Indigenous Peoples. New York. 19-21 January 2004.

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